Getting It Right
by emeraldteardrops
Summary: One Shot. Mia deals with nonRonin induced stressors. I wrote it just for fun. This isn't brilliant folks.


I wrote this as a response to Venka's challenge about a Ronin with an abusive parent. Mia isn't one of the Ronins, but the challenge gave me the inspiration. There are many forms of abuse, mental and physical alike, and sometimes the pressures put on children and young adults can be more than the adult realizes. My folks were always the supportive kind, but I've seen it a lot with other students. This is short and simple and I only threw it together one night so don't expect much. It was just fun to write.

Getting It Right

Mia sat as quietly as she could, one hand resting primly on her lap, the other holding her text book open in front of her. The only noise she made was the occasional rustle of a page as it was turned. She tried to pretend that he didn't notice.

This was one of the hardest subjects for her, and she spent every spare moment she had nose deep in the coursework, hoping against hope that one of these days she would have an amazing revelation and calculus would become magically easier. Thus far it hadn't.

Her eyes were starting to glaze over as she read, symbols blending into unintelligible words, sentences of explanation a whole other language. Mia jerked her head back and blinked rapidly, trying to bring everything back into focus. She sighed, just barely a breath out of her mouth, inaudible, but he had never needed much to hear what he wanted to hear. Her grandfather grunted from his side of the room and looked over his newspaper at her critically.

"If you're not even going to pay attention to what's in front of you," he spoke sharply, "then you're wasting your time even staying up. You can't study with your eyes half closed." Dr. Koji shook his head, snapping his newspaper as he raised it higher, effectively blocking her from his view.

"It's math, not rocket science, girl."

"I know, Grandfather," Mia replied softly, unconsciously pulling the book closer to her protectively. She leaned forward, shoulders hunching forward as she stared down at the functions lined up in front of her. There had to be a pattern to all this. Once she had the pattern then she would understand. Everything had a pattern and once she found it, Mia had always excelled at the subject. But this…this was just so hard for her.

"You've been sitting there for the last two hours and you've turned the same six pages over and over again, Mia." Dr. Koji's voice came across the room at her, gravelly and short.

"I know, Grandfather," Mia repeated, her brow furrowing, frustration flickering in her eyes. "I wanted to reread the chapter to get a better understanding of it."

The paper snapped again and the reader lapsed into silence, but Mia could feel his disapproval from across the room. She knew she should be used to it by now, but she wasn't. It was hard being the granddaughter of a man with such a prestigious reputation. Having done so many great things in his life, all Mia could hope was that one day she could follow in his footsteps. But to do anything, she had to master calculus. Mia redoubled her efforts.

Mia had leaned over the book, mouthing the definitions intently when something slammed down on the table in front of her. She yelped, startled, then blushed in embarrassment at the look her grandfather gave her. What he had dropped was a heavy spiral notebook and a graphing calculator.

"It's math, Mia. You can read it as much as you want to, but it won't matter if you can't DO it. So, get your head together and do it."

Mia blushed even deeper at the criticism and reached forward quickly to grab the notebook. She pulled a pen out of her pocket and flipped to the back of the section, writing a number one down on the top of the paper. Dr. Koji remained standing there. Mia did her best to not let her embarrassment show. She had never liked having people hovering over her shoulder, watching everything that she was doing, but she especially didn't like it when someone of authority was the hoverer. It only made her more nervous and self conscious.

Mia shifted in her seat and tried to think about how to integrate the equation in front of her. She had a vague idea of the concepts, but the sine and cosine parts confused her. It was like reading Latin. Mia's mind wrapped around history and political science so easily, but this was so-

"Mia! Quit daydreaming!" At his voice, Mia jumped again. "Look at the problem. Think about how to solve it. Pick up the pencil and solve it! This is not nearly as hard as you are making it." Dr. Koji glared down at his granddaughter. Mia sat back in her seat, staring up at him in dismay.

"I'm trying Grandfather, it's just that-"

"No excuses, Mia! I will not have my eldest granddaughter sit here and allow herself to sink into mediocrity. You're almost ready to start applying to universities, but no one is going to be impressed with substandard grades."

"Yes, Grandfather."

"The competition for the best schools is staggering. You can't expect to get in if you can't keep up with your coursework."

"No, Grandfather." Moisture formed in the corners of Mia's eyes but she refused to let any more weakness show.

"If you're going to go head to head with those students you better show you are as smart and as capable as them. If you aren't, you damn well better learn to hide it. Now get every one of those problems done and done correctly." His deep voice never softened once during his tirade.

"Of course, Grandfather." Mia bowed her head in shame. Dr. Koji grunted again, then seemed satisfied that he had appropriately chastised her. He returned to his chair and his paper, the sounds of crinkling indicating that he was turning his attention away from her. Mia breathed a small sigh of relief, but her chest felt tight, and her lungs hurt. She was growing sick to her stomach. But she knew the feeling, she had had it often and it wasn't anything to worry about. It was normal to feel like this while studying, and she wasn't trying hard enough if she didn't.

Mia forced every bit of concentration she had into her work, despite the ticking clock behind her. It had gotten late, but it didn't matter. This was important. Her grandfather had made that very clear. She was starting to understand the material, but only after trying and retrying the problems. Her stomach had tied into knots but she ignored it.

"Mia, it's midnight," Dr. Koji announced to her. Mia looked up from her work, eyes weary. She pushed back a stray strand of hair and gave him a weak smile.

"I'm halfway done, Grandfather," Mia replied. He nodded and rose, walking over and looking down at her work. After satisfying himself that what she had done was in fact correct, he gave her a light kiss on the top of her head.

"Keep working, Mia," her grandfather said, "you'll get it. This is for your own good." Mia's small smile brightened a little as she watched him leave the room and head up to bed. Mia took a deep breath and looked at the remaining work. Her brain was slowing down from tiredness, dragging this out.

Mia waited until she heard the footsteps of her grandfather reach his room and the sound of his door closing. She quietly rose and went to her backpack, sitting beside the bookcase. She unzipped the main compartment and reached in, pulling out a small purse. Inside was a little bottle of aspirin. Mixed in with the aspirin were a few small yellow pills. Mia quickly tipped out one and swallowed it, recapping the bottle and tucking it away. They were only caffeine pills, and they were completely legal. One was the same as four cups of coffee, and they hit her pretty fast. More times than she could count she'd needed them to get her through a long night of school work.

Mia returned to the table and got back to work. Not too long afterwards the caffeine kicked in and she felt a second wind, allowing her to push along. Still, the caffeine eventually wore off, right about the time Mia finished her last problem. She forced herself to recopy her work, wasting another twenty minutes, but she knew that her grandfather would expect a neatly finished copy ready for his examination the next morning. Mia told herself that she appreciated how much interest he took in her work, and that her grandfather helped her be more than she ever would by herself. Finally she closed her books, and turned off the lights.

As Mia slowly moved up the stairs towards her bedroom, the exhaustion hit. She stumbled a little, her vision spinning, and her stomach heaved. Mia hurried up the rest of the stairs and into the bathroom next to her bedroom. She couldn't help herself and she threw up, trying to keep one hand twisted around her hair so it wouldn't get dirty, her other hand gripping the toilet. Afterwards she wiped her mouth and flushed the toilet, standing shakily. She had expected that she might get sick, caffeine did that to her since she normally only drank decaffeinated things. But she figured the trade off was worth it. She had gotten her work done.

Mia washed her face and went to bed, pulling the covers over her head so she didn't have to see that the clock read 2:54 AM. She didn't want to know. She was tired and she needed what rest she could get. She had an early and long day ahead of her in only a couple hours. Her stomach felt painfully empty and her chest still hurt, but she barely noticed from behind her closed eyes. Mia thought of her grandfather and smiled just as she fell asleep. She was content in knowing that, tonight at least, she wasn't mediocre.


End file.
